Tag Archives: Mega Voice

Adafruit Feather: Megavoice key switching

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More experiments and I have the initial cut of a simple key switching program for Yamaha MODX and Genos/PSR guitar Megavoices. The program is written in CircuitPython and runs on an AdaFruit Feather M4 Express. Here is a link to the ZIP file with the code.

Megavoice: Background information

MODX, Genos and mid-range PSR keyboards have Yamaha Megavoices. Megavoices combine several waveforms into a single voice (assigned to a single MIDI channel). They are intended mainly for arpeggios (Montage/MODX) and styles (Genos and PSR).

Generally, a Megavoice uses velocity switching to trigger waveforms. Some of the waveforms play ordinary notes, some play articulation notes, and others plays special instrument effects. Let’s take a look at the Nylon Guitar voice, which is implemented on both MODX and Genos. [Megavoice technology dates back to the early Motif and Tyros era, so I won’t be listing all of the models with Megavoice!] Many other guitar Megavoices (e.g., Concert Guitar, Clean Guitar) have the same velocity layout. Megavoice Nylon Guitar has the following velocity layers:

    Vel Lo  Vel Hi  Waveform      Key range
    ------  ------  ------------  -------------
       1      20    Open soft     C6 and below
      21      40    Open medium   C6 and below
      41      60    Open hard     C6 and below
      61      75    Dead          C6 and below
      76      90    Mute          C6 and below
      91     105    Hammer        C6 and below
     106     120    Slide         C6 and below
     121     127    Harmonics     C6 and below
       1     127    Strum noise   Above C6
       1     127    Fret noise    Above C8

MIDI note numbers 0 (C-2) to 96 (C6) comprise “playable” notes. Note numbers above 96 are instrumental effects: strum and fret noise. The strum and fret noises include the sound of a pick crossing the strings, body knocks, and sleeve noise (fingers sliding on strings).

As you can tell from the layout, if you try to play a Megavoice from the keyboard, you’ll have an interesting and maybe frustrating experience. No one really has the skill to control their key touch to reliably play an open hard note versus a dead note, etc. However, a sound designer can program different sounds into a MIDI track with precision, thereby making an expressive, realistic guitar part in a style or arpeggio. [Historical note: Many of the Motif ES/XS arpeggios were taken from PSR Megavoice styles!]

Genos, Tyros and PSR have a way of making the base waveforms playable: Super Articulation (SArt). The SArt engine monitors the incoming key strikes and, in real-time, chooses a destination waveform for each note. If you play in a detached manner, SArt triggers one of the open string waveforms (depending upon your strike velocity). If a second note occurs within a fourth with a slightly higher velocity, SArt plays a slide (up). SArt plays a body knock in response to the ART.1 and ART.2 buttons.

Clavinova CSP and CVP do not have articulation buttons. However, you can still join the fun. Select an S.Art guitar voice and tromp on the foot pedals!

Montage and MODX have Expanded Articulation (XA). It plays open notes as expected and relies on the ASSIGN 1 and ASSIGN 2 buttons to bring in an articulation like Slide or Harmonics. (Element programming allows more flexibility than this simple example, BTW.)

Feather MIDI event processor

In order to implement key switching, we need to break into the path from keyboard to tone generator. We want a chance to respond to incoming notes (key strokes) before the notes go to the tone generator (TG).

We can’t hack the hardware in MODX or Genos, but we can send MIDI messages from the keyboard (e.g., MODX MIDI OUT) to an external MIDI event processor which sends a modified MIDI message stream back to the instrument (e.g., MODX MIDI IN).

I described the hardware for an AdaFruit Feather-based MIDI event processor in an earlier post. The event processor consists of an AdaFruit M4 Express processor, MIDI I/O FeatherWing, OLED FeatherWing and Joystick FeatherWing. Up to this point, I haven’t exploited the OLED or joystick, so you could get away with a very tiny Processor plus MIDI I/O combination. It’s small and efficient enough to be powered by a LiPo battery!

The hook-up looks like this:

    ----------------         --------------       --------------
   |                |       |              |     |              |
   |         MIDI OUT ----> MIDI IN        ----> RX             |
   | MODX6          |       |  FeatherWing |     |  Feather M4  |
   |          MIDI IN ----> MIDI OUT       ----> TX             |
   |                |       |              |     |              |
    ----------------         --------------       --------------

The MIDI FeatherWing communicates with the Feather M4 Express over the serial I/O RX and TX ports. The Feather M4 Express communicates with the Mu editor and development environment on a Windows PC (not shown). Code is written in CircuitPython which is loaded into the Feather M4 from the PC over a USB communication link. The code can print status information via USB to the Mu environment — very handy when debugging.

Since this is a prototype, I’m trying to keep things simple. The MODX6 requires a little bit of manual configuration:

  • MIDI I/O directed to/from the 5-pin DIN connectors
  • MIDI LOCAL OFF (i.e., key events are not sent directly to the TG)
  • Nylon Guitar or other compatible guitar Megavoice selected on Part 1

That’s not too much to ask.

Key switching

It may be said that neither SArt or XA bring together all of the available articulation waveforms in a factory preset single voice (part). That’s where key switching can play a role.

Basically, I want to assign a range of keys to switch between articulations and sounds. For my initial experiments, I assigned MIDI notes 36 to 47 to key switching duties. On MODX6 (61 keys), this key range covers the lowest octave of physical keys (the power-up default, without internal octave switching enabled). Articulations are assigned to keys as shown below.

Assigned key switch articulations

For now, I’m holding the black keys and B1 in reserve. One possibility, for example, is to assign body knocks to F#1, G#1 and A#1. We’ll see!

The articulation keys enable the assigned articulation. All keys from C2 and above play notes using the selected articulation. The articulation keys latch. So, if I strike E1 (Mute) and then strike a key in the play range, a muted guitar note will sound. All subsequent notes will be mute notes until I strike C1 (Open) and return to playing open strings.

I spent some time experimenting with Genos SArt voices in order to get ideas for enhancements. I will summarize my notes in a future post. Suffice it to say, Yamaha have some good ideas! It’s all a matter of code. 🙂

Copyright © 2025 Paul J. Drongowski

Which guitar is which?

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I hope my recent post about single coil and double coil guitar tone and amp simulators was helpful. Today, I want to further reduce theory to practice.

A quick recap

Guitar pickups are important to overall guitar tone. There are two main types of pickup: single coil and double coil. Players generally describe the sound of a single coil pickup as bright or thin and describe the sound of a double coil pickup as warm or heavy. Double coil pickups are also called “humbuckers” because the design mitigates pickup noise and hum. Pickup tone tends to favor certain styles of music:

  • Single coil: Blues, funk, soul, pop, surf, light rock and country styles
  • Double coil (Humbucker): Hard rock, metal, punk, blues and jazz styles

Of course, there are no hard and fast rules and exceptions abound!

Fender guitars frequently use single coil pickups while Gibson favors double coil. Three guitar models are favorites and are in wide use:

  • Fender Telecaster (Usually 2 single coil pick-ups): Bright, banjo-like tone, twangy.
  • Fender Stratocaster (3 single coil pick-ups): Bright, cutting tone.
  • Gibson Les Paul (2 humbucker, dual coil pick-ups) Warm tone with sustain.

The Telecaster was originally developed in 1951 for country swing music. It was quickly adopted by early rock and rollers. The Stratocaster appeared in 1954, but is usually associated with 60s rock. It is often used in rock, blues, soul, surf and country music. The darker tone and sustain of the Les Paul make it suitable for hard rock, metal, blues and jazz styles.

These aren’t the only (in)famous guitars around. The Rickenbacker solid and semi-acoustic models are also classic. Think about the chime-y Beatles and Byrds radio hits from the 1960s. Single coil Ricks are not uncommon.

If you would like to hear the difference in raw tone between Fender Telecaster (single coil), Fender Stratocaster (single coil) and Gibson Les Paul (double coil humbucker), cruise over to this comparison video. The demonstrator compares raw tone starting at roughly 7 minutes into the video, ending at about 11 minutes. The first part of the video is the usual yacking and the last part of the video puts the guitars through an overdrive effect with the demonstrator playing over a backing track. The last part is less informative because our ears need to sort out the guitar from the backing track. Plus, once you put a guitar into a distortion effect, all bets are off. Are you hearing the true guitar tone or just an effected, synthesized tone?

Method to the madness

My ultimate goal is to identify and classify synth and arranger guitar voices, single coil vs. double coil, in order to quickly chose an appropriate guitar voice (patch) for MIDI sequencing. I work with Yamaha gear (Genos workstation, PSR-S950 arranger, and MOX6 synthesizer), so the following discussion will focus on Yamaha. However, you should be able to apply the same method (and guesswork about names!) to Korg, Nord, whoever.

Yamaha provides some major clues as to the origin of its guitar samples, but they are quite reticent to use brand names. Arranger (Genos and S950) voice names are especially opaque. Therefore, the best we can do is to use the clues when possible and to always, always use our ears.

Fortunately, the deep voice editing of the MOX6 lets me dive into the guts of a guitar patch to find the base waveform information including waveform name. In order to get the analysis started, I went into the Mega Voice patches to find the underlying waveforms. When Yamaha sample a guitar, they sample multiple articulations (open string, slap, slide, hammer on, etc.). The waveforms for a particular instrument are a family and share the same root name like “60s Clean.” Given the base waveforms, I then can identify regular synth voices which use the same waveforms. The regular voices are more easily played on the keyboard than Mega Voices, making it easier to perform A/B testing.

Mega Voices are a good entry point for analysis because the MOX, Motif and Montage family have roughly equivalent Mega Voices as the S950, Tyros and Genos product family. This allows A/B testing across and within product lines.

Development history is important, too. I took note of new Mega Voices added to each product generation. Each new Mega Voice is a new waveform family. Given a Mega Voice, I look for new Super Articulation (SArt) voices which were also added at the same time and try to find the SArt voices which are based on the Mega Voice. The chosen SArt voices become reference sounds for further A/B testing and starting points for voice selection when sequencing a song.

When A/B testing, all EQ, filter and DSP effects (including reverb and chorus) must be turned OFF. We need to reveal the sound of the underlying raw waveforms (samples). Even so, there may still be sonic differences due to VCF and VCA programming. I found that this kind of critical listening is quite tiring and it’s better to work for 30 minutes, walk away and come back later with fresh ears. Otherwise, everything starts to sound the same!

Breakdown

Enough faffing around, get to the bottom line.

First up is a correspondence table between Montage (Motif, MOX) Mega Voice guiters and Genos (Tyros, PSR S-series) Mega Voice guitars.

       Genos name            Motif/MOX name        Motif/MOX waveform
---------------------------  --------------------  ------------------
8 10 4 60sVintage                                  n/a [Strat]
8 11 4 60sVintageSlap                              n/a [Strat]
8  4 4 50sVintageFinger                            TC Cln Fing *
8  5 4 50sVintageFingerSlap                        TC Cln Fing Slap
8  6 4 50sVintagePick                              TC Cln Pick *
8  7 4 50sVintageSlap                              TC Cln Pick Slap
8  8 4 SlapAmpGuitar       
8  3 4 SingleCoilGuitar      Mega 1coil Old R&R    1Coil *
8  1 4 SolidGuitar1          Mega 60s *            60s Clean *
8  2 4 SolidGuitar2          Mega 60s *            60s Clean *
8  0 4 CleanGuitar           Mega 1coil *          Clean *
8  0 7 JazzGuitar            Mega Jazz Guitar      Jazz *
8  0 5 OverdriveGuitar       Mega Ovdr Fuzz        Overdrive *
8  0 6 DistortionGuitar      Mega Ovdr Distortion  Distortion *

A star (“*”) in the table is a placeholder for all of the voices and variants within a family. Motif/MOX have many variants of “Mega 60s” and “Mega 1coil” voices. They all use the “60s Clean” and “Clean” waveforms in different ways, including different stomp box and amplifier effects. A star in the waveform column denotes a waveform family, i.e., collectively a group of waveforms for all of the articulations sampled from the same instrument.

A few observations. Montage did not add any new guitar Mega Voices. Montage does not have a Stratocaster waveform. [A future upgrade for Montage?] Finally, I couldn’t quite work out where “SlapAmpGuitar” fit into the voice universe.

“Slap,” by the way, is a playing technique borrowed from bass players. The thumb hits a string instead of a pick or finger. Usually the lowest string is slapped because it is the most easily hit by the thumb. The slap may be combined with palm or finger muting to prevent other notes/strings from sounding with the slap.

Beyond Mega Voice

Folks know by now that Mega Voices are for styles and arpeggios. Yamaha never intended them to be played using the keyboard. It’s darn near impossible to play with the kind of precision required to trigger the appropriate articulation (waveform) when needed. They’re good for sequencing (styles, arpeggios) because a sequence can be edited in a DAW with precise control over note velocities.

None the less, musicians wanted to be able to play these great sounding voices and Yamaha responded with Expanded Articulation (Motif XS and later) and Super Articulation (Tyros 2 and later). I won’t dive into Expanded Articulation here. Super Articulation, however, effectively puts a software script in front of a Mega Voice. The script translates each player gesture to one of the several articulation waveforms which comprise a Mega Voice.

This description is notional. I doubt if the software uses an actual Mega Voice as the target. Some gestures like legato technique are handled in the AWM2 engine à la Expanded Articulation.

If you followed my suggestion to audition the Mega Voices without EQ, effects, etc., then you surely know how difficult it is to play a Mega Voice from the keyboard. Should you try this, I recommend setting the touch curve to HARD in order to hit those ultra low key velocities. Or, set RIGHT1, RIGHT2 and RIGHT3 to a fixed velocity. By changing the velocity level, you’ll be able to play a specific waveform within a Mega Voice precisely and reliably. Please refer to the Mega Voice maps in the Data List file to see the correspondence between velocity levels and waveforms.

To audition without Mega Voice and to select Genos (Tyros, S950) voices for sequencing, it’s far easier and fun to play a Super Articulation (SArt) voice. Problem is, with Yamaha’s opaque voice naming, it’s difficult to know the exact waveform family you’re triggering. So, I built a table of SArt reference voices by matching SA voices with their Mega Voice equivalent. 

Genos Mega Voice      SArt reference   Waveform
--------------------  ---------------  ------------------------
60sVintage            60sVintageClean  [Strat]
60sVintageSlap        TBD              [Strat]
50sVintageFinger      CleanFingers     TC Cln Fing *
50sVintageFingerSlap  FingerSlapSlide  TC Cln Fing Slap
50sVintagePick        VintageWarm      TC Cln Pick *
50sVintageSlap        TBD              TC Cln Pick Slap
SlapAmpGuitar         TBD              TC Cln Fing Slap Amp/Lin
SingleCoilGuitar      SingleCoilClean  1Coil *
SolidGuitar1          WarmSolid        60s Clean *
SolidGuitar2          WarmSoild        60s Clean *
CleanGuitar           CleanSolid       Clean *
JazzGuitar            JazzClean        Jazz *
OverdriveGuitar       TBD              Overdrive *
DistortionGuitar      HeavyRockGuitar  Distortion *

Single coil vs. double coil? That’s easy. The only double coil guitars are SolidGuitar1, SolidGuitar2, and any SArt voice built on the 60s Clean waveform. All other guitars are single coil.

Hmmm. I’ll bet that a double coil Gibson Les Paul and/or Gibson SG are in the works. Yamaha will eventually fill the gap!

A few entries in the table are TBD, “to be determined.” Definitively identifying slap guitar has eluded me so far. I can hear a difference between non-slap and slap, but finger slap vs. picked slap, my ears aren’t there yet.

All in all, it was a useful exercise to strip away the effects and EQ. It reminds me of the scene in the documentary “It Might Get Loud” in which The Edge demonstrates his effects pedal board. First, the plain tone of the guitar, then the huge sound with all of the effects piled on. Thanks to the tech built into our keyboards, we can be a little bit like The Edge.

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Single coil, double coil

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Today’s exploration is practical even if it is excessively wonk-ish.

Last week, I decided to update MIDI sequences for a few classic tunes by The Alan Parsons Project. Parsons and Eric Woolfson laid down 70s progressive rock tracks with serious groove: “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You,” “What Goes Up”, and “Breakdown”. Classic in their own right are the guitar solos by Ian Bairnson. Bairnson contributed electric guitar (and the occasional saxophone!) to the Parsons/Woolfson wonder duo.

I’m striving for authenticity, so one of the first questions to ask is “What guitars and amplifiers did Bairnson use for the I Robot and Pyramid albums?” Fortunately, Ian has a page dedicated to his gear. Very likely, he played a Les Paul Custom through a Marshall 50 head driving a 4×12 Marshall angle-front cabinet. Thanks for posting this information, Ian!

The next hurdle is searching through the many tens (or hundreds) of synth guitar patches, amp simulators and speaker cabinet sims to find the most authentic audio waveforms and signal processing effects. Bang, we run into a practical and wonk-ish problem: Which of these many digital choices are likely candidates and which choices can we ignore? Unfortunately, manufacturers (at the very least, their attorneys) make the search difficult by avoiding any use of brand names (e.g., Gibson, Fender, Les Paul, etc.) in patch and effect names. Sometimes the patch/effect names are suggestive euphemisms, most times not.

For these kinds of sequencing jobs, I’m arranging on Yamaha gear, either PSR-S950 or Genos. Although I love their sound, it’s seems that Yamaha have deliberately gone out of their way to divorce patch/effect names from their real-world, branded counterparts. The number of candidates is small in organ-land, i.e., “Organ flutes,” as Yamaha calls them, mean Hammond B-3. The number of candidates in guitar-land is much, much larger and harder to discern.

Here’s some info that might help you out. Kind of decoder for guitar instrument and amp/cabinet sim names. Even though I looked to authoritative sources, there’s still guesswork involved. So, apologies up front if I’ve led anyone astray.

Single vs. double coil

This is a biggy. Guitarists are ever in pursuit of “tone.” Of course, a big part of tone is the electric guitar at the front-end of the signal chain. In this analysis, I’m concentrating mainly on solid body guitars and I’m ignoring acoustic, hollow-body and semi-hollow instruments.

Some might argue that player style, articulations and dynamics are the true front-end. If you want to argue that point, please go to a guitar forum. 🙂

For solid body, the choice of pick-up is important. If you’re not familiar with electric guitars, the pick-up is the set of wire coils beneath the guitar strings that sense vibrating strings and convert mechanical vibration to electrical vibration. The electrical signal is sent to a volume/tone circuit and then on to a guitar amplifier. A guitar may have more than one pick-up, say, one pick-up by the neck, one under the bridge and one in the middle between the two. The pick-ups may be switched into alternative combinations. Along with the volume/tone controls, the tonal possibilities are nearly endless.

Seems kind of pathetic to rely on only one or a few guitar waveforms (samples), doesn’t it?

There are two main kinds of pick-up: single coil and double coil (humbucker). The humbucker was invented and patented by Gibson as a means of mitigating the noise (hum) present produced by a single coil pickup. The sound of a single coil pick-up is often described with terms like “bright,” “crisp,” “bite,” “attack.” Double coil pick-ups are described as “thick,” “round,” “warm,” “dark,” “heavy.”

Due to parentage, Gibson guitars usually have double coil pick-ups. Fender guitars usually have single coil pick-ups. Naturally, the quest for tone has led to hybrids using both kinds of pick-up, regardless of manufacturer.

Reducing these observations to practice, when Ian Bairnston says he used a Gibson Les Paul Custom for his work with The Alan Parsons Project, we should be looking for samples (waveforms) of a double coil electric guitar, of which the Les Paul is an excellent example. Even if you couldn’t give two wits about synth patch names, use your ears an listen for a thick, round, warm, dark, heavy tone.

Detective work

OK, I’m a wonk and did a little detective work.

Yamaha arranger patch names are obtuse about single vs. double, etc. Worse, the voices are pre-programmed with DSP effects which mask the characteristics of the fundamental waveform. So, step zero is to be aware of the masking and turn off all EQ, DSP, chorus and reverb effects when listening and making comparisons.

Doubly worse is the lack of deep voice editing where we can deep dive a voice and discover the basic waveforms underlying a voice patch, including the waveform names. This is where my trusty Yamaha MOX6 synthesizer comes into play. I use the MOX6 to deep dive its patches and then compare patch elements against candidate voices on the PSR-S950 arranger. This always leads to interesting discoveries.

Although I refer to the MOX specifically, please remember that the MOX is a member of the Motif/MOX family. Comments can be extrapolated to the Motif XS on which the MOX is based, and the Motif XF/MOXF which are a superset of the Motif XS/MOX.

A large number of MOX programs have “Dual Coil” in their name. These programs are based on the “60s Clean” waveforms. Think of “60s Clean” as a family of waveforms with multiple articulations: open strings, slide, slap, FX, etc.

Other MOX programs are “Single Coil”. These programs are based on the “Clean” family of waveforms. If you listen and compare “60s Clean” versus “Clean,” you can hear the difference between single coil and double coil. The voice programming switches between the waveforms depending on key velocity, articulation buttons, and so forth.

The “60s Clean” and “Clean” waveform families make up the “Mega 60s Clean” and “Mega 1coil Clean” MOX megavoices, respectively. Please recall that a MegaVoice uses velocity switching, articulation switches (AF1 and AF2) and note ranges to configure a versatile voice suitable for arpeggio and style sequencing. Given the underlying waveforms, we can conclude that Mega 60s Clean is dual coil and Mega 1coil Clean is single coil.

Mid- and upper-range Yamaha arranger workstations also have MegaVoices, albeit they may have small differences in patch programming. The fundamental waveforms, however, are the same. Yamaha, like all manufacturers, recycle waveforms (samples). It’s not that older waveforms are bad; they provide backward compatibility and legacy support. Ever increasing waveform memory capacity makes it easy and inexpensive to include legacy waveforms and voices.

Given that conceptual basis, I did a little A/B testing between the MOX synth and the S950 arranger. Here is a summary of the correspondence between guitar voices:

    PSR-S950 Voice     MOX6 Voice
    -----------------  ---------------------
    MV CleanGuitar     Mega 1coil Clean

    MV SolidGuitar1    Mega 60s Clean
    MV SolidGuitar2    Mega 60s Clean

    MV SingleCoil      n/a
    MV JazzGuitar      n/a

    MV OverdriveGtr    Mega Ovdr Fuzz
    MV DistortionGtr   Mega Ovdr Distortion

    MV SteelGuitar     Mega Steel
    MV NylonGuitar     Mega Nylon

This is what my ears tell me when all of the EQ, DSP, chorus and reverb effects OFF.

MV SolidGuitar1 and MV SolidGuitar2 are based on the same waveform. The patch programming is different: different EQ, VCF and VCA parameter values. The default DSP effects are different, too.

Naturally, you’re curious about the missing S950 MV SingleCoil and MV JazzGuitar voices in the MOX6 column of the table. The MOX does not have equivalent voices. However, the Motif XF eventually added “Mega 1coil Old R&R” and “Mega Jazz Guitar”, both patches based on new single coil and jazz guitar waveform families. Indeed, the MV SingleCoil is great for that old rock’n’roll twang.

Hey, S950 owners! I’ll bet that you didn’t know that you have a piece of the Motif XF under your fingertips.

[I’m still categorizing SArt voices as single or double coil. Watch this space.]

Amplify this!

That’s it for the front-end of the signal chain. What about amp simulation?

The riddle of amp sim names is difficult to solve. Fortunately, guitarists are positively obsessive about vintage amps and the Web has many informative sites. (Too many, perhaps?) Armed with a few clues from the Yamaha Synth site, I forged out onto the Web and arrived at these educated guesses about amp simulators:

    DSP effect/sim      Real-world
    ------------------  ---------------------------------
    US Combo            Fender (Bassman?)
    Jazz Combo          Roland Jazz Chorus
    US High Gain        Boutique (Mesa Boogie Rectifier?)
    British Lead        Marshall Plexi
    British Combo       Vox (AC30)
    British Legend      Marshall (Bluesbreaker? JCM800?)
    Tweed Guy           Fender 55 Tweed Deluxe
    Boutique DC         Matchless DC30 (Boutique AC30)
    Y-Amp               Yamaha V-Amp
    DISTOMP             Yamaha stomp pedal FX
    80s Small Box       No specific make/model
    Small Stereo Dist   No specific make/model
    MultiFX             No specific make/model

The list compares quite favorably with Guitar World’s 10 most iconic guitar amplifiers:

    Vox AC30 Top Boost (1x12, 2x12)                 1958
    Fender Deluxe (1950s tweed)                     1955-1960
    Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier                      1989
    Marshall JCM800                                 1981
    Marshall 1959 Super Lead 100 Watt Plexi (4x12)  1965
    Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus (2x12)                1975
    Peavey 5150 (2004: 6505)                        1992
    Fender Twin Reverb                              1965-1967
    Fender Bassman (4x10)                           1957-1960
    Hiwatt DR103 (4x12)                             1972

Several of the amp sims include cabinet simulation, too. Here are my guesses:

    DSP Sim  Real-world
    -------  --------------------------------
    BS 4x12  British stack (Marshall)
    AC 2x12  American combo (Fender?)
    AC 1x12  American combo (Fender?)
    AC 4x10  American combo (Fender?)
    BC 2x12  British combo (Vox?)
    AM 4x12  American modern (Mesa Boogie?)
    YC 4x12  Yamaha
    JC 2x12  Roland Jazz Chorus
    OC 2x12  Orange combo
    OC 1x8   Orange combo

The abbreviations “BS” and “AC” are potentially confusing. “AC” suggests the (in)famous AC series of Vox amps. “BS” suggests “Bassman”. However, I don’t recall a Vox AC 4×10, while the Fender 4×10 is iconic. A Yamaha site spelled out “BS” as “British Stack,” so I’m sticking with “A” for American and “B” for “British”.

Back to Bairnson, I’m trying the British Legend amp sim with a BS 4×12 cabinet first, then tweak.

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat wonk-ish walk through synthesizer and simulated guitar-ville. In the end, it’s tone that matters and let the ears decide.

Copyright © 2018 Paul J. Drongowski

Creating a Mega Voice in YEM

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With all of the Genos™ hoopla, let’s not forget about technique and skills! A few interesting questions popped up on the PSR Tutorial Forum and I’m reposting my answers here.

Today’s blog describes how to create a Mega Voice for PSR/Tyros using Yamaha Expansion Manager (YEM). With this background information in mind, I go on to discuss maximum polyphony in AWM2 and how to count voices against maximum polyphony.

The discussion has a PSR/Tyros focus, but a lot of the information applies to Motif, MOX and Montage, too. If you want to learn more about the Yamaha AWM2 voice architecture, I recommend reading the first chapter of a Motif- or Montage-series reference manual and the corresponding synthesizer parameter manual. (Download these manuals from the Yamaha manual library.)

Creating a Mega Voice in YEM

Regular voices are the usual MIDI voice: 128 velocity levels and only one basic sound. For example, nylon guitar is just the pitched, melodic sound of the notes either louder or softer depending on note velocity.

Mega Voice guitars (and other Mega Voices) are different. Please look at the Mega Voice Map starting on page 16 of the Tyros Data List PDF.

Let’s take a look at the Mega NylonGuitar voice. For MIDI notes B5 and below, the MIDI velocity is broken into eight (8) ranges:

    1- 20 Open soft
   21- 40 Open med
   41- 60 Open hard
   61- 75 Dead
   76- 90 Mute
   91-105 Hammer
  106-120 Slide
  121-127 Harmonics

Each range plays a different kind of sound. So, the MIDI velocity determines which guitar sound. Then, the velocity within that limited range determines how loud it will be.

Example 1: MIDI note A4, velocity 38 makes an Open Med guitar sound which is loud.

Example 2: MIDI note A4, velocity 2 makes an Open Med guitar sound which is quiet.

Example 3: MIDI note A4, velocity 110, makes a Slide guitar sound.

Now, let’s look at the last two columns in the Mega Voice map, again, for the Mega NylonGuitar voice. For MIDI notes between C6 and B7, the Tyros plays a Strum noise. The velocity in this case determines the Strum noise loudness over the full range 1-127.

For MIDI notes above C8, the Tyros plays a Fret noise. The velocity determines the fret noise volume and is full range 1-127.

Example 4: MIDI note D8, velocity 127 plays a very loud fret noise.

Put this knowledge into action with YEM

Now you need to figure out how to do this using the voice editor in Yamaha Expansion Manager (YEM). Each voice has up to eight elements. Think of each element as a mini, controllable synthesizer.

You will need one element for each of the velocity ranges that form the main body of your Mega Voice. In the case of the Mega NylonGuitar voice, that’s eight elements!

In YEM, build one element at a time. Layout the samples for one velocity range of the many body. You may have one waveform or you may have several waveforms. Each waveform occupies a key range. Do not map any waveforms onto the keys C6 and above (yet). These keys are reserved for the noise notes.

When you select a waveform belonging to an element, YEM highlights the color and displays eight resizing dots on the edges of the waveform. Use these dots to resize the waveform. Moving left or right changes the key assignment for the waveform. Moving an edge up or down changes the lower or upper limit of the velocity range to be assigned to the waveform.

If you have a lot of samples, be prepared to do a lot of work! Now you’re learning how much work Yamaha puts into voice development!

Once you have assigned the waveforms (samples) for the main body of your new voice, you can work on the noise notes, that is, any keys C6 and above.

Select the first element. Assign the waveforms for the noise notes to the keys C6 and above. The actual layout is up to you, but you must use only the keys C6 and above.

If your noise notes have only one velocity range, 1 to 127, then you must set the velocity range for only those waveforms (1 to 127). If your noise notes have two or more velocity ranges (not recommended), then you must use more than one element.

So, you can see that YEM has enough editing power to create a Mega Voice. Be prepared to study carefully how Yamaha voices are constructed. Please don’t expect to just jump in, clap your hands, and be finished. I regard Mega Voice development as a fairly advanced, expert job. If you haven’t created a voice before using YEM, then I suggest trying something simple until you understand elements, waveform layout across keys, and velocity ranges.

Counting voices against maximum polyphony

Now that you’re schooled in voice structure, it’s a good time to discuss maximum polyphony and counting voice elements against maximum polyphony.

This has always been a somewhat confusing topic because of the way polyphonic voices are counted.

As I mentioned above, a Tyros or Motif or Montage (AWM2) voice consists of up to 8 elements. Assume that only the RIGHT1 part is enabled and thus, only one Tyros voice is enabled. When a key is struck, the AWM2 engine determines the active elements and assigns each active element to a physical-level, hardware tone generation channel. One or more elements may be active simultaneously for a given note under the assumption.

Assignment and channel use is additive. If RIGHT1 and RIGHT2 are enabled (i.e., two layered voices), then there are one or more active elements from the RIGHT1 voice and one or more active elements from the RIGHT2 voice. This is why layers chew up polyphony.

The number of tone generation channels determines the maximum number of active tones playing at any time — the maximum polyphony.

Be prepared to be confused!

Even if all eight elements are defined in a Mega Voice, not all eight elements may be active at a time. One to eight elements may be active depending upon the incoming MIDI note and the element programming (i.e., the velocity range and note range for each element.) When the synthesis engine gets a MIDI note (consisting of a MIDI note number and velocity), it decides which elements to play. If only one element matches, then only one polyphony voice is used up. If two elements match, then two polyphony voices are used up, and so on.

Thus, depending upon the combination of note ranges and velocity levels, a voice may use anywhere from one to eight voices of polyphony. It all comes down to the particular design (programming) of a user voice.

If you’re not confused yet, hold on, there’s more. In the past, a stereo voice would use two tone generation channels while mono uses one channel. The left waveform is assigned to an element and the right waveform is assigned to its own element. Montage and Genos have the new tone generator, the SWP70. The new tone generation hardware supports 128 mono/stereo voices (channels) of polyphony. That is, stereo elements get mapped to a stereo channel. This is a big deal because it allows greater use of stereo waveforms without cutting too deeply into the available polyphony.

Think like a coder

By now, if you’re a programmer, you’re thinking of pseudo-code somthing like:

    if ((MIDI note number >= lowest key in key range) &&
        (MIDI note number <= highest key in key range) &&
        (MIDI note velocity >= lowest velocity in velocity range) &&
        (MIDI note velcotiy <= highest velocity in velocity range))
    {
        Generate the tone for the MIDI note
    }

This conditional statement summarizes what I discussed earlier.

As usual, there's more.

The AWM2 synthesis engine defines and evaluates other conditions:

  • Detached (non-legato) or legato
  • Articulation button ON or OFF
  • Jump in note interval less than one octave

Motif and Montage people will recognize the first two conditions as Expanded Articulation (XA). PSR and Tyros people will recognize all three conditions as part of Super Articulation (SA). These additional conditions also control element triggering. Think about extending the pseudo-code's condition with other conjunctive terms.

The Motif and Montage voice editors expose the XA conditions. Yamaha Expansion Manager does not expose these conditions. Thus, it's not possible to create Super Articulation voices using YEM.

Copyright © 2017 Paul J. Drongowski

Mega Voice in PSR/Tyros styles

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Yes, this site still answers questions and doesn’t just publish rumors and FUD. 🙂

Recently, a member of the PSR Tutorial Forum needed help using a Megavoice in a custom Tyros style. My answer seemed to be useful to a broader audience, so I decided to post my answer here. The information applies to PSR arrangers, too, because the Tyros and PSR share the same SFF1 and SFF2 (SFF GE) style formats.

Megavoice guitars are very different than regular guitar voices.

Regular voices are the usual MIDI voice: 128 velocity levels and only one basic sound. For example, nylon guitar is just the pitched, melodic sound of the notes either louder or softer depending on note velocity.

Megavoice guitars (and other Megavoices) are different. Please look at the Megavoice Map starting on page 16 of the Tyros Data List PDF.

Let’s take a look at the Mega NylonGuitar voice. For MIDI notes B5 and below, the MIDI velocity is broken into eight (8) ranges:

    1- 20 Open soft
   21- 40 Open med
   41- 60 Open hard
   61- 75 Dead
   76- 90 Mute
   91-105 Hammer
  106-120 Slide
  121-127 Harmonics

Each range plays a different kind of sound. So, the MIDI velocity determines which guitar sound. Then, the velocity within that limited range determines how loud it will be.

Example 1: MIDI note A4, velocity 38 makes an Open Med guitar sound which is loud.

Example 2: MIDI note A4, velocity 2 makes an Open Med guitar sound which is quiet.

Example 3: MIDI note A4, velocity 110, makes a Slide guitar sound.

Now, let’s look at the last two columns in the Megavoice map, again, Mega NylonGuitar voice. For MIDI notes between C6 and B7, the Tyros plays a Strum noise. The velocity in this case determines the Strum noise loudness over the full range 1-127.

For MIDI notes above C8, the Tyros plays a Fret noise. The velocity determines the fret noise volume and is full range 1-127.

Example 4: MIDI note D8, velocity 127 plays a very loud fret noise.

The Megavoice mapping makes it more difficult to program (sequence) guitar parts than regular voices. The user needs to make sure that the MIDI note is in the desired range (B5 and under, above C6, etc.) and that the MIDI velocity controls what you want.

Yamaha’s proprietary CASM has a few settings to control Mega Voices. The bad news — you can’t change some of these settings.

When I program Megavoice into a style, I use two parts for each Megavoice:

    Part 1: Pitched notes -- all note B5 and below
            NTR: ROOT TRANS or GUITAR
            NTT: MELODY or CHORD
    Part 2: Noise notes -- all notes above C6
            NTR: ROOT FIXED
            NTT: BYPASS

You want the pitched notes to transpose. You don’t want the noise notes to transpose. (Please think of the noise notes like drum notes/sounds.)

I wrote a three part series of articles about capturing Motif/MOX arpeggios and converting them to PSR/Tyros styles:

If you don’t care about Motif/MOX, then skip part one. Parts two and three are more generally useful and describe the conversion of a MIDI file to a style. Part three concentrates on Megavoice conversion.

Copyright © 2017 Paul J. Drongowski

MOX performance to PSR style (part 3)

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In parts one and two, I described a way to capture Yamaha MOX performances into a Standard MIDI File (SMF) and how to translate the SMF to a PSR/Tyros style. Part three discusses Mega Voices and how to program MIDI data for a Mega Voice part such that the special articulations and effects (FX) play back correctly.

A Yamaha Mega Voice is a synthesizer or arranger workstation voice that has several sonic components. Take the MOX “Mega Finger+Slap” voice as an example. It has five components; each component is assigned to a MOX tone generator element:

Element Waveform Lower Upper Velocity
1 Finger Med C-2 B5 1-60
2 Finger Hard C-2 B5 61-80
3 Finger Dead C-2 B5 81-120
4 Thumb/Pull Hard C-2 B5 121-127
5 Electric Bass FX C6 G8 1-127
Table: Mega Finger+Slap voice elements

These components do not sound all at once! The MIDI note number and velocity trigger just one of the elements. (In this case, all components/conditions are exclusive.) One the first four elements sound when the MIDI note is between C-2 (MIDI note number 0) and B5 (MIDI note number 95). The MIDI note velocity further determines which of those four elements is triggered. The fifth element sounds when the MIDI note number is between C6 (note number 96, inclusive) and G8 with any non-zero velocity.

As Phil Clendeninn (Yamaha) points out, Mega Voices are intended to sweeten pre-programmed patterns and styles and are not intended for live keyboard playing. Human beings just cannot play notes with enough precision to reliably and accurately hit the velocity ranges. The bass voice is relatively simple; A Mega Voice guitar has as many as eight velocity zones!

The MOX also has “regular” voices that are similar to Mega Voice. The “Finger PBs AF1” voice is one example. This voice has four components:

Element Waveform Lower Upper Velocity
1 P-Bass Rndwound Med C-2 B4 1-90
2 P-Bass Rndwound Hard C-2 B4 91-127
3 Electric Bass FX C5 G8 1-127
4 Finger Harmonics C-2 B4 1-127
Table: Finger PBs AF1 voice elements

Notice that element 4 overlaps with elements 1 and 2. Element 4 sounds when the assignable function 1 (AF1) button is held. On the MOX, you can deep dive voices through the front panel and find out what makes them tick (or tock). This level of voice programming is hidden on PSR/Tyros arranger workstations. Fortunately, Yamaha have published the note and velocity ranges for workstation Mega Voices. (See the data list PDF.)

MOX and arranger workstation Mega Voices are mostly compatible. However, Yamaha do not advertise or guarantee compatibility. The MOX Electric Bass FX wave contains many more effects than a typical single arranger Mega Voice for example. You’ll need to use your ears to make sure that MIDI data for a MOX Mega Voice sound correctly with an arranger Mega Voice.

Voices such as Finger PBs AF1 resemble and behave like a Mega Voice, but do not follow typical Mega Voice conventions, such as reserving notes above C6 for FX like slides, scrapes, fret noises, etc. Regular notes with this patch sound one octave lower than a Mega Voice bass. You’ll need to transpose the incoming notes depending upon the target arranger voice. Also, if you use an arranger Mega Voice as the target, you must scale numerically the note velocities to match the Mega Voice programming. This translation requires attention to detail and a good ear!

Here’s another crazy problem although it is not Mega Voice related. In two cases, all of the notes in the MOX bass track had velocity equal to one! Coincidentally, a MOX synth bass voice was involved in both cases. I changed the note velocities to something more reasonable (and randomized) using SONAR.

As if all of this is not enough complexity, there is one further wrinkle — note transposition. The arranger transposes the MIDI notes for a part according to the transposition rule and table for the style part (and section). Mega Voice tracks, however, contain both regular notes (below C6) and FX notes (C6 and above). If the transposition rule and table transpose the regular notes, the FX notes get transposed, too, when both kinds of notes are in the same track. When the transposed notes are played back, the FX notes may get mapped to the wrong effect or to high pitched regular notes that sound totally out of place (i.e., sonic clams).

There are three solutions to this problem:

  1. Delete the FX notes from the MIDI data for the part.
  2. Split the MIDI data into two parts: regular notes and FX notes.
  3. Do what Yamaha does.

We’ll take a look at solutions 1 and 2 in a moment. Normal notes and FX notes appear together in the same Mega Voice track in a Yamaha factory style. (Crack one open with a DAW!) So, Yamaha must have an internal way to treat normal notes and effect notes differently. There is some evidence that the note transposition rules and tables can handle Mega Voice. However, this approach is not documented and it is not exposed through the keyboard (i.e., the PARAMETER tab in Style Creator) or a Yamaha-endorsed software tool. Thus, solution number 3 is not feasible for us.

Solution number 1 — delete the FX notes — is straightforward. The downside is that you lose the nuances that make a part exciting. Let’s face it, bass slides are cool and kick up the energy. If you don’t have the time, energy, knowledge or inclination, this is the way to go. Further, you may not have an unused style part available to split off the FX notes into a separate track. (The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.) In the case of MOX pseudo-Mega voices, you may still need to scale note velocities or transpose the incoming notes up (or down) one octave to match the target voice. That’s enough hassle for some folks.

Solution number 2 splits the MIDI data into two separate style parts (tracks). One of these tracks holds the regular notes and the other track holds the FX notes. SONAR has a track clone operation which makes separation a breeze. After cloning, both tracks have the same MIDI data and the same Mega Voice patch. You do need to change the MIDI channel number of the clone to the channel of an unused style part. Delete the FX notes (C6 and above) from the BASS part (channel 11). Delete the regular notes (below C6) from the clone. Style Fixer generates the correct transposition rule and table for the BASS part. You must change the transposition rule and table for the cloned part using CASM Editor. Set the rule and table of the clone to “FIXED” and “BYPASS”, respectively. Remember that the rule/table needs to be set for all sections.

Why “FIXED” and “BYPASS”? These are the settings that you would use with a drum track. Effectively, the guitar/bass effects are a kind of percussion instrument that have their own rhythm. Therefore, you want to use the note numbers as they are (FIXED) and you want to inhibit (BYPASS) note transposition.

I recommend making the split early in the style development process because you will need to make this split with a DAW. Once you’ve made the split, I strongly suggest trying the style on the PSR/Tyros right away. Take note of the sections that use FX notes. Listen carefully. Play CMaj7 which does not require transposition (assuming that the transposition root/chord is CMaj7). Can you hear the right effects in the right places? Now play a G7 chord. Do you still hear the correct effects in the right places? If the effects disappear, then you need to check the FX notes and the CASM transposition rule/table information. You can tweak the rule/table for each section on the PARAMETER tab in Style Creator when a fast repair is needed.

If you do change a style on the keyboard, remember to save the style. The keyboard may change the style format to “SFF GE” (also known as “SFF2”). CASM Editor does not currently handle SFF2. This limitation can cramp your working style [pun intended] since a style edited on the keyboard cannot be opened by CASM Editor.